Gryffindors Have Secrets Too
by Shadow Rise
Summary: Draco and Hermione discuss their past. Scorpius and Lily fraternize. ONESHOT


_**gryffindors have secrets too**__** by andii**_

_He kisses me and the world goes black and white, dull in comparison to his lips on mine._

His fingers are like heaven as they lose themselves in my hair, tangling and tugging. His other hand cups my cheek, massaging my skin with his thumb, making me feel beautiful… wanted. He's an amazing kisser, not that I have much experience. His lips, tongue, teeth… he uses everything in his arsenal to blow me away.

I've missed him these few months apart during the summer. Missed his soft, ash-blond hair falling in his eyes, missed his smirk and the way he says my name.

He tastes like wintergreen. Smells clean and cool, like some expensive cologne I've never heard of. His skin is smooth and unmarred, like he was made of marble. My back pressing against the unyielding stone of a random wall down a dark alley makes me want to rethink the comparison.

He'd spotted me in the crowd, surrounded by the usual gaggle of redheads. Pulled me into the alley while the rest of them continued their shopping and chattering, not yet noticing my disappearance. I'm thankful that the Weasley clan is so very large.

There were no words after he brought me here, nothing to be said. He only stared into my eyes and I returned the gesture full force. I liked the games he played; staring so deep, trying to unnerve me and make me blush and giggle like so many other girls did. I never did. I wasn't that girl. I would never be that girl.

He finally gave up his little competition, brushing his hand through my hair. He always did this. He seemed to have a fascination with my hair, Merlin knows why. Then he kissed me, and suddenly I was a foolish schoolgirl. I lost myself in him, as always, and let him mold me into anything he wanted.

I was his. I'd always be his.

Hermione stepped off the lift, her steps confident and purposeful as she navigated the office floor. She was here for one reason alone and nothing would deter her goal. She opened the door without a hesitation, letting it bang loudly against the wall.

"What the bloody hell!"

Hermione was unaffected by his vulgarity after years with Ronald's potty mouth. Striding forward, she reached his desk, standing ominously before him. Her usually calm features were cold and haughty in her fury.

"Keep your son away from my niece."

Draco sneered at the woman, standing and leaning over his desk. "What's this? Potter too busy to protect his daughter's purity?"

Her eyes flashed at his words, her thoughts suddenly filled with the instinct to reenact their confrontation in third year. This time she'd do more than hit him. "Shut it, Malfoy. Just keep Scorpius away from Lily."

"Or what, Granger? This isn't Shakespeare; we aren't the bloody Montague's and Capulet's," he reasoned, the sneer never wavering. "Can't we all just get along? Or would you keep her from happiness to save face in the _Prophet_?"

"Oh please! The only reason you're letting this go on is to build up your family's reputation. Or to annoy me to no end, I'm unsure which."

"It isn't all about you, Granger." He gave her an infuriating smirk. "Potter and Weasley are a large motivation as well."

"Well, you're lucky they haven't found out, otherwise the Malfoy name would die with you, ferret," she snapped, pulling out his childish nickname in her irritation. How did he always turn her into such a juvenile when they argued? "Ginny and I are the only ones that know."

"Ah, and where is the Weaslette today? Why send you to do the Potters' bidding?"

She looked away from him, crossing her arms across her chest and turning her gaze to the photos hanging on his wall. His wedding, his son, his family; all typical photos to keep in his office… _Cliché_, even.

"You know why." Her words were quiet, a soft whisper inexplicably filling the space between them.

He, too, looked away, suddenly finding the paperclip on his desk very interesting. The air in the office was thick with tension and unspoken words.

"Please, Draco," she said earnestly, looking away from the beautiful family smiling at her from their frames. "It's just… wrong."

"_Wrong_?" he snapped, their tense moment of calm broken. "_That's_ what you think is wrong?"

Hermione glared across the desk at him, her eyes daring him to say it, to bring out what they'd both been thinking for the past five years. It was their unspoken truth, the secret they'd both known since Rose's first year, since he had seen those eyes.

"You kept my flesh and blood from me for _eleven years_."

"You didn't want her!" she burst, her voice cracking halfway through her sentence.

"You didn't know that!"

"How could I _not_ have known, Draco? You were married, Asteria was pregnant… You didn't want me or my child."

His gaze softened for a moment, startling her. "I would've…"

She broke their eye contact as his voice trailed away to nothing. It still burned, after all these years, to know that he couldn't have done anything to change their situation. He was bound to Asteria, to Scorpius… bound by his name and his family's expectations, even now as a grown man.

But then, wasn't she bound as well? She loved Ron. She loved their cozy house; their loving family… everything about their life together was just something more to love. How could she be so selfish as to toss it down the pot for her own happiness?

She couldn't. She hadn't.

"You would have done nothing. Or, rather, I wouldn't have let you," she amended, noticing the argumentative look on his face. "We already had lives apart from each other. It was too late for us."

Silence filled the office as her words hung in the air, the truth of them resonating within them both.

"Does he know?" His voice was soft as he asked, expecting he already knew.

He expected wrong. "Yes."

He jerked his gaze up to meet hers, shock written on his every feature at her revelation. "_What?_"

"You honestly thought he wouldn't recognize those eyes?"

"I just — I never — _why_ would—"

"Ron and I were friends long before we were in love… We weren't together when the… the affair began," she said, stumbling over the word like a child repeating a curse she'd heard. "He loved me… he fell in love with her. He didn't care… just wanted to help."

The affair had been a breaking point for Draco and Asteria's marriage. She had demanded separate sleeping quarters for the next six year, even going so far as to move into the farthest wing of the manor just to escape his presence. When his parents visited they would share a room, but he would always end up on the couch. Only when Scorpius was old enough to wonder why his parents did not sleep together like all his friends' did they bury the hatchet. To hear that Ron had accepted Hermione without prejudice — even if they haven't been together — really struck a nerve.

"And Potter?"

"I tell everyone she has my mother's eyes," she replied, anticipating his question. He always wondered what Harry thought, a habit left over from their youth.

He seemed to realize this, causing him to change the subject. "Why are you here now to tell me my son should stay away from a girl?"

"Because it is wrong."

"Look Granger—"

"Weasley," she snapped, irritated at his sudden change of disposition. He was amazingly temperamental for someone who was supposed to be so cold. "It's Weasley now."

"No, it's always been _Weasley_," he seethed, changing the meaning of her words effortlessly. "Now you've just got the name to prove it. You were never mine."

"You never wanted me to be." Her voice was a deadly whisper, daring him to speak one more unkind word.

He did not test her, standing in quiet vehemence instead. The silence stretched between them again, the air still as they tried to regain their respective footing in the conversation. They'd always been this way around each, eloquence and propriety tossed out the window in their anger. He knew which buttons to push to make her lose control, just as she knew how to say the right thing to strike his fiery temper.

"Why would you let Scorpius be with his sister's cousin?"

"It is by marriage only, Hermione, not blood."

"_Why_, Draco?"

_I look down into her gentle doe eyes, feeling my stomach tie itself in knots over the tenderness found there. We were in the alley beside Flourish and Blotts, wrapped around each other like vines of Devil's Snare, helpless victims of each other's affections._

Her freckled cheeks were flushed a dainty pink, matching the color of her Cupid's bow mouth. I thank God she doesn't have the same misfortune as Al, turning into a tomato with every blush.

She has a simple beauty… nothing like my mother's aristocratic good looks or the exquisite women in the other noble families. She had something feral about her that made the primal, uncivilized part of my being show itself. There was no control when it came to her.

She'd caught my eye in a corridor one day, rushing to Charms with her hair flying out behind her… that's_ what caught my eye: her hair. I'd never seen anything so… breathtaking. Red like a harvest moon, fluttering through the air like a bunch of butterflies. So… free._

She despised her tresses, swore at them when they didn't obey her will. She said it was a terrible joke fate was playing on her, putting her in a house whose color clashed so horribly with her hair. I didn't care. I still couldn't keep my fingers out of it.

There is a long moment of staring as I assess her level of well-being. We hadn't owled each other at all during the summer holidays, too worried about being caught. Neither of us was ready for the drama of dealing with the long-running animosity between the Malfoys and Weasleys (and Potters, as it were). It was too soon.

I had a sinking feeling that her brother knew something was going on between us, though, and I was rather worried for my safety more than hers (the Potters didn't seem to be the kind of people that would hurt one of their own, after all). We might have been friends, but that didn't mean Al wouldn't pound me into the dirt if he didn't approve of us being together… And I was rather certain that he wouldn't approve. But, then, James was probably the one I should worry over the most… bloody brute.

When I'm confident that she's alright and that she still likes me enough to allow it, I crash my mouth down against her own soft, supple lips, losing myself in her sweetness. Her petite digits grip my robes as I cup her cheek, encouraging each other's continued ministrations. My other hand curls itself in her hair and I revel in the delightful feeling of her silken mane.

God, how I love her hair.

I heard the sound of a throat clearing from the opening of the alley, obviously trying to interrupt Lily and me. We pulled away from each other and looked to the source of the disturbance.

Damn.

"He-hello, Father."

"Scorpius," he replied, nodding his head. "No need to ask who your friend is… Red hair says it all."

I tensed, fearing his reaction. I heard Lily let out a small gasp as my grip tightened around her waist..

"I'll, ah, meet you at Twillfit and Tatting's. Don't be long." And with the swish of his robes, my father was gone and I was quite alone with my girl once more.

"What was that about?" she whispered, prying herself from my grasp.

"No idea…"

"_Why_, Draco?"

"Because at least one Malfoy man should find happiness with a woman."


End file.
